So, you still have a need for speed on your bike?
In the first part of this series looking at five ways to go faster, we looked at the ‘short game’ – something I cover in more depth in my most recent webinar.
You have been working on aspects of your training and have now increased your speed on the take-off for the attack and the short hill climb and once you have attacked, you can sustain a high level of effort for several minutes.
Now we want to focus on the long game – how can you do all that we talked about but keep going for hours? It’s a golden question, but there is no solution to this that does not involve time.
Some people, particularly in these interesting and challenging times, have become very fast at short distance indoor events, but are going to be found somewhat wanting when they get back out on the roads again.
There are two problems about building up speed without building up endurance.
The first is maybe not intuitive. If you have a health or injury problem and you do not carry endurance fitness into it, you basically have to start again. You could have multiple setbacks when endurance fit and return back to your top very quickly even several times in a season, but not if you only have ‘speed fitness’.
The second problem is that the world is filled with riders who can ride fast for a short distance, but not make the distance of the event – for most of those you need endurance fitness.
What we will cover in part two of the Five Ways to go Faster webinar are some examples of how to do endurance training and riding, how to handle multi-day events, and also how back-to-back days of long riding make you stronger. The incredible irony of true endurance training is that when you do it slow, you actually get faster. We will explore that.
The last of our five tips will be focused on rest, which I will combine with testing. But in simple terms, proper rest is the pump that primes your improvement. Remember, most sub-elite riders do not improve. This session explains the two main reasons why that is a fact.
To join the Five Ways to go Faster – the Long Game webinar with Verve Cycling CEO, Bryan Taylor, on Thursday 29th April 2021, click here to view the available sessions and register.
